Biography

He chatters a bit then looks at Robert De Niro and says "Bye killer", perhaps his most memorable cinematic quote while playing Charlie T in Taxi Driver (1976). But Matlock was a veteran with a distinguished career before and after the famous movie. Police commissioners, preachers, detectives and judges are among the characters he played through the years. Among the directors he worked with, there's impressive names like Martin Scorsese, Sidney Lumet, John Landis, Spike Lee, Ivan Reitman and Daniel Petrie. One of the finest black actors of his generation, with a fine voice and incredible presence, Matlock appeared in different kinds of projects ranging from comedies such as The Blues Brothers (1980) and Ghostbusters (1984) to dramas like The Long Walk Home (1990) and Night Falls on Manhattan (1996) His association with Spike Lee provided back-to-back experiences in Crooklyn (1994) and Clockers (1995), which was produced by Scorsese, who directed him in Taxi Driver some years before. He died at the age 90 in 2015, leaving behind a limited but outstanding body of work.
- IMDb mini biography by: Rodrigo Amaro